5 Tips to Guide a Successful Business Digital Transformation

Businesses are always looking to increase their productivity and efficiency and have always turned to technology to help achieve these improvements. From email taking over post, to cloud computing replacing hardware, businesses have always relied on new technology to help transform the way we work.

Despite the technology  available, many businesses across the UK are still relying on outdated ways of working. Research carried out by the European Investment Bank found that, as of 2020, 37% of European firms and 27% of US businesses had still not embraced advanced digital technology.

It’s clear that analogue processes can’t keep up… and businesses are looking to improve their processes through complete digital transformation. No matter where you work in the corporate world, you’ll have probably heard the term ‘digital transformation’. In this blog, we’ll be discussing digital transformation, why it’s important and how your business can take the first step towards transforming the way you work.

What is digital transformation?

In the basic sense, digital transformation refers to the adoption of digital technology across a company, with the aim of creating new business processes or improving existing ones. It’s about embracing digital technology across the whole of a business and re-examining existing processes to see if they still work in a digital age.

Digital transformation isn’t just about changing the way your business operates. It also involves cultural and organisational change. There’s no point implementing new technology and processes if the bulk of your employees are  still in the ‘paper’ mindset. .

Why is digital transformation important?

Digital transformation is also about bringing greater efficiency, productivity, and value to a business.

Improve customer experience

Around 60% of customer dissatisfaction originates in the back office. Transforming your processes with digital technology can make the way you work more efficient and organised, allowing you to focus on offering an impressive customer experience.

Get data-driven insights

Implementing digital technology across your business allows you to benefit from real-time data and analytics. This is particularly useful in sales and marketing, where tracking metrics and analysing data can help to influence your strategy and power better decision-making.

Drive cost savings

Although implementing digital transformation can involve upfront costs, it can help businesses save money in the long run. Digital transformation can save money by reducing error rates, implementing automation, eliminating paper and stationery and increasing agility.

Boost employee engagement

Embracing digital technology across your business can help improve employee engagement and morale. Greater efficiency and automation can help reduce repetitive, low-value tasks, whilst ongoing, data-driven feedback can boost employee performance by as much as 12%.

Stay competitive

In the digital world, your business needs to be able to keep up with the changing times. Implementing digital transformation increases the agility and flexibility of a business, putting you in the best possible position to respond to market changes and developments.

Our Top 5 Tips to Guide a Successful Digital Transformation

If your business is looking to start your digital transformation journey, here are our top 5 tips for you.

Vet your current processes

Before you can transform the way you work, it’s important to examine your processes, as well as evaluate your current level of digital maturity. This will help you understand the level of digital transformation needed across your business, as well as help form the basis of your digital transformation strategy.

Maybe your business already uses digital technology and will need to focus more on improving the integration and interoperability of your software. On the other hand, your business may still rely heavily on paper-based processes and may need to focus on digitising first. Vetting your current processes will help to guide you on your digital transformation journey.

Find the right technology

A large part of the digital transformation is the digital technology itself. Finding and implementing the right technology for your business is therefore essential. But with so many choices of SaaS applications out there, it’s difficult to know where to start. Establishing your business goals and needs can help to narrow down your decision, as well as address any gaps in your current processes.

It’s important to do your research before you opt for expensive software. No matter what software you opt for , to get the most out of your digital transformation, you need  to ensure that the platforms and systems  can integrate and communicate with each other.

Promote/hire the right skillsets

Digital transformation isn’t just about implementing the right technology, it’s also about hiring and promoting the right skills sets. Digital transformation can be difficult; around 70% of digital transformations fail.

To ensure your transformation is successful, it’s wise to put the right technical skillsets in the right places. Research shows that around 70% of organisations change their top team during their digital transformation—most commonly when leaders who are familiar with digital technologies joined the management team.

Research also shows that businesses that have an engaged chief digital officer (CDO) are 1.6 times more likely than others to report a successful digital transformation than those without.

Convince your employees

As we’ve established, digitally transforming a business is hard. It takes strategic planning, investment, patience, and commitment. But all of that may still not be enough if you can’t convince your employees to embrace your operational changes. This is why it’s so important for a simultaneous cultural shift to occur. Around 70% of digital transformations fail, most often due to resistance from employees.

Many employees can be stuck in their ways and see any changes to their processes or technology as extra work for themselves. Communicating the new changes to employees, as well as the benefits and reasons behind it, can help your employees embrace new technology, software, and processes.

Ensure you offer training

If you’re going to be implementing new applications or software, it’s vital you offer your employees the proper training they need to get to grips with their new way of working. Failing to engage and listen to the people that will carry out these new processes could see your transformation efforts doomed to fail. Despondent and disengaged employees may revert back to old, inefficient ways of working.

Ensuring your employees are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and support to use any new software can help increase engagement and buy-in with your new processes. Every employee in your business will be at a different level of digital maturity, so catering for each individual is a must.

How E-Sign Can Drive Digital Transformation

At E-Sign, we know just how important a good electronic signature is during the digital transformation process. E-Sign offers all this and more, including our digital document platform, payment gateway, ID Checker, API and connectors. Here’s how E-Sign can help to form the basis of your digital transformation:  

Eliminate Paper

Our electronic signature can help to end your business’s dependency on paper, encouraging you to go from analogue to digital. Create, e-sign and send documents in just a few clicks, with the ability to manage your templates and outstanding and signed documents from the E-Sign platform.

Keep Processes Digital

Eliminate the need to print, scan and post by keeping your documents digital. By using a digital signature, you can streamline your processes and eliminate unnecessary steps that slow down progress and take up your employees’ time.

Add Automation

Add automation into your document processes with Microsoft Power Automate and Zapier. With a range of pre-set triggers and actions, we’ve made it easy to add automation into your processes. Automation helps to eliminate repetitive admin tasks and frees up more time for higher-value work, so your employees can make the most of their working hours.

Customise with our API

At E-Sign, we understand that all businesses will have different needs and requirements. With the E-Sign API, you can create a custom-built digital ecosystem for your document and e-signature processes. Our new Developer Hub provides all the info you need to tailor our software to the way you work.

Try out E-Sign for Free

If you’re looking for an electronic signature to help your business on its digital transformation journey, try E-Sign for free today. With our no-strings-attached demo, you can try out the E-Sign software free for 14 days, without having to provide any payment details.

 E-Sign is a leading provider of digital transaction management solutions, supplying professional services including Electronic Signatures, Web Forms, ID Checker, Verification Tools, Personalised Emails, API and Payment Processing to businesses of all sizes across the UK.

To find out more about our E-Sign solutions and how they could transform your business, get in touch with us today.